Image by By Maik Meid – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=22770637
Dear Readers, I’ve had a bit of a cough and throat infection for the past few days. Last night I had my online writing community meeting, which involves a lot of reading out our work and chatting. And today, I’ve lost my voice. I try to say something and a little cartoon squeak comes out. Fortunately, my husband has volunteered to speak enough for both of us. So that’s alright then.
Unfortunately, the rest of the world hasn’t volunteered to be quieter in compensation. Outside, we are having electric vehicle chargers installed for about twenty house-lengths along the road. This is great news, but involves lots of goings-on. Yesterday we had a huge delivery of soil to fill up the trench that was dug, and this morning we had that machine that tamps the soil down (and goes thumpety-thump like a gigantic mechanical rabbit). Then we had lots of shouting up and down the road as the workmen tried to get themselves coordinated. Then we had my favourite, the angle-grinder, which cut up a paving stone right outside the house. There’s something about this that reminds me of fingernails down a blackboard. As the guy did the cutting, three other guys stood around to observe. None of them, as far as I can see, were wearing eye or ear protection.
Yesterday, when I was feeling a little better than I do today, I stopped to converse with a man who was up a ladder using an electric drill to dig into a wall. The noise was infernal, and when it stopped, I had to say something.
“Mate”, I said, “Shouldn’t you be wearing ear protection? I hate the thought of you being deaf as a post by the time you’re fifty”.
When you’re a grey-haired lady you can get away with more because everyone thinks you’re their Mum.
“This isn’t too bad!” The man shouted. The noise had stopped and he didn’t need to shout, which rather proves my point that his ears were ringing. “Yesterday I was doing this indoors and it was painful!”
“It’d be awful for you to go deaf, though”, I said. I’m already losing a bit of hearing and wish I’d not gone to so many loud concerts and clubs in my youth.
“Don’t worry!” he said brightly. “If I’m deaf I won’t have to listen to all the terrible stuff in the news!”
So I wished him luck and went on my way, leaving him to carry on drilling.
I know that on well-regulated building sites things like proper boots, hard hats and ear and eye protection are mandatory, but for guys working for small companies there doesn’t seem to be the same culture or duty of care. I imagine that nobody thinks that hear-loss can happen to them – after all, most youngsters seem to think that age-related damage is in the distant future. Little do they know how quickly the distant future catches up. But at least I tried with this guy, and I will continue to try when I think it’s not going to get me a black-eye or a mouthful of abuse. Showing that you care about somebody can sometimes make them stop and think, or at least I hope it does.
And now, gentle Readers, I am heading back to bed with some lemon and ginger tea. It’s not the day I planned to have, but maybe it’s the day I need.
Some honey in your tea would be soothing too 🙂 I had a colleague who suffered from laryngitis every now and then – you would think her classes would have taken advantage of her inability to speak, but she planned her lessons so well that the children responded positively to her calamity. I hope your voice returns soon!
She must have been a very skilled teacher! I think teachers are particularly prone to losing their voice, because they use it so much – a friend of mine who is a singer lost her voice on the same day as I did, so there’s obviously some kind of bug going around. When I trained people (IT and Finance) I would be guaranteed to lose my voice once a year.
“When you’re a grey-haired lady you can get away with more because everyone thinks you’re their Mum.” This is so true!
I hope you are on the mend soon. My son is also having throat issues, and a hot cup of honey-lemon was very soothing.
I hope you feel better asap. In the meantime, enjoy all the dozing, reading and dreaming you can do while in bed.
During local installation of fibre last year I reported the groundworks firm to the HSE, with videos. Young lads, all East European, no breathing or hearing protection, sometimes no eye protection, working into the night using small head torches. One was nearly decapitated by the arm of a rotating mini digger; it just missed him. Public infrastructure installed with exploitative labour practices, using sub contractors to large PLCs. The HSE spoke to the company and received assurances that the issues would be corrected, but the HSE itself is starved of funds because, hey, who cares what happens to young foreigners?
Well done you for reporting to HSE, I hadn’t thought of that. And yes, the HSE is on its knees through lack of funding and therefore lack of inspectors.
One cannot help caring. Be well.